By now, I’m dead sober.

My parents sit across from me, both leaning forward, hands on their knees as if they practiced their movements in advance. We’ll unnerve her by being a united front. We’ll say the same words and synchronize our breathing.

I never noticed until this moment, but they’ve started to look alike. They both have short brown hair and black-rimmed glasses, and wear loose, dull-colored clothes. I don’t remember my mother this way. She used to wear bright colors and laugh a lot. For a long time it felt like being raised by another kid who was older and knew more.

“Was she cooperative?” my father asks Isaac.

Isaac leans in the doorway of the living room, wearing a look of sarcastic piety. I have the urge to throw a lamp at him.

“As cooperative as Grace gets,” he says, and chuckles.

“He’s lying,” I say. “I fought like hell. I didn’t want to go anywhere with him.”

“She was a little feisty but she calmed down quickly,” Isaac says.

I glare at him before looking back at my parents. “Why did you change the locks?”

My mother looks at my father for approval before speaking. He gives her a curt nod. “We feel you’d do better in a more structured environment right now.”

“Like where? At home in my old room?”

“I’m getting to that,” my mother says.

I have a blood-boiling vision of slipping back into my old life, complete with flowered wallpaper and stuffed animals. Yesterday I was a grown woman with a job and an apartment. Today I’m a child.

“Maybe I could dig up my clothes from eight years ago and go back to high school,” I say. “I mean, since apparently I never grew up.”

“Where did you get this streak?” my father breaks in, his voice harsh and loud.

“What streak? The one that makes me want to live on my own, free from surveillance by creeps like Isaac?”

My mother glances at Isaac. “She’s been drinking,” she says in an apologetic tone.

My father clenches his wide, square jaw. “The streak that makes you determined to embarrass us. It started long before James died, and I know it didn’t come from this side of the family.”

My stomach twists up behind my heart. “What does that mean?”

His eyes are like black embers. “It means you were born this way.”

“Maybe not born,” my mother says to him. “The way she was raised…her first three years…”

My father shoots her a withering look and she shuts up.

“Talking back, wearing short skirts, acting in school plays…even James was a way to defy us. You were practically living with him.”

Don’t forget the porn you found on my phone, I want to say. And my friends with atheist parents. And the romance novels on my Kindle.

My father’s face is red. “You know I’m trying to raise money for an addition to the church. And how do you help? By quitting your job and showing up drunk at Bram Russell’s office. It’s as if you’re trying to destroy this family’s reputation.”

Shame pours over me like hot tar. “How do you know I was there?”

“One of the parishioners saw you. He was meeting someone for lunch. He sat across the lobby and watched you for twenty damn minutes.”

My insides crumple. I can sense Isaac’s triumph from here.

“This can’t go on, Grace,” my mother says. She tries to sound gentle but she just sounds weak. As weak and afraid as she’s always been.

I look from her to my father and back again, watching their mouths move, barely taking in their words. Maybe this shows they care. Maybe they want me home because they love me. Everyone says they’re just worried about me, and this proves it.

Maybe I’m so twisted around from losing James I can’t recognize love anymore. I’m so desperate for security that I don’t know it when it hits me in the face.

Moving home might be the best thing for me. I could take time to rest, get closer to my mother, look for another job. It could be exactly what I need.

Suddenly, the thought of being here, of being what my parents want me to be, is a relief. I don’t have to be alone in my apartment every night, drinking and texting old friends I lost touch with while I was out of my mind over James. I can wake up the way I always did, to breakfast cooking and my father practicing his sermon in the den.

“Okay,” I say.

My parents stare at me. “Really?” my mother says.

My father’s mouth is flat. “You understand what this means. You do what’s asked of you. You fall in line.”

The words make me bristle, but I put on a smile. “I know I’ve been drinking too much. And I promise I’ll get another job.”

“If you can,” my father says. “Employers don’t like quitters.”

“I had good reason,” I say.

“What – giving your job to a friend? Letting Bram Russell rule your life again?”

My heart sinks. I will not cry. My father can cut my soul to smithereens but I won’t let Isaac see a single tear.

“We know how hard James’s death was for you,” my mother says. “But it’s time to move on.”

Move on? I bite my lip. “If I can borrow the car I’ll go get my things. Just enough for a few days, then I’ll move the rest this weekend.”

“Your luggage is already packed,” my father says.

“All of it?”

“Isaac took care of it. It’s in his car.”

A cold feeling creeps through my chest. Isaac touched my things. He packed my panties and the t-shirts I wear to bed, and then he changed the locks. And my parents told him to do it.

But we can argue about it later, after he’s gone. “I’ll just go get everything, then.”

I stand up. My father frowns. “You think you’re staying here?”

Confused, I stare at him.

“You’ll be living with Isaac and his family, Grace.”

“What?”

“The dynamic when you’re here, in our house…it’s not good for anyone,” my mother says. “You know that.”

My heart turns to ashes. I was never what they wanted. I’m old enough now that they don’t have to hide it anymore.

I clutch my hands together. “Mom, please.”

“It’s that or an inpatient program for your drinking,” my father says. “Your behavior stops now. Tonight.”

Isaac clears his throat. I look at him as if I’ve never seen him before. “You’ll love living with Kathy and the kids. She needs a lot of help so you’ll always feel useful, and the farm isn’t that far from town.”

“The farm,” I say blankly.

“In fact, Kathy’s holding dinner for us, so we should get going.”

Broken images race through my head. A country kitchen stuffed with screaming children. My bedroom under slanted eaves with a twin bed and musty quilt. Isaac’s figure in my doorway at night, and no way to escape. When I try to picture being in rehab, all I can see is a dark hallway lined with locked doors.

“You won’t be at Isaac’s forever,” my mother says. “Six months or so until you get back on your feet.”

Everyone stares at me. All I can hear is panic screaming through my body. I want to pound the walls with my fists. I’ve told you what he did to me, I want to cry. Why won’t you believe me?

But nothing I say will matter. It never has.

I put on the bravest smile I can. “All right.”

“Really?” my mother says.

“Yes. I’ll go to Isaac’s.”

She lets out a sigh. “Oh, Grace, I’m so relieved. I told your father you’d be open to the idea.”

“And I am,” I say in a blank voice. “Very. I’m going tonight?”

“Yes,” my father says, nodding. “Right now.”

“Great. I’ll just…run to the bathroom before we leave, okay?”

“Sure,” Isaac says. “Take your time.”

Rounding the corner, I start up the carpeted stairs. I force myself to walk at a normal pace. It gives me time to think, anyway.

These damn heels. I could probably find flats in my old room but I don’t have time.

Help me, James. If you’re watching over me, help.

Stepping into the bathroom, I shut and lock the door. I slip off my shoes and quickly tie the straps together. It’s still raining. Isn’t there a robe around here? One of those hooded terrycloth things? The door hook and hamper are empty. Shit.

That’s okay. I’ll figure it out.

I lift the window slowly. It’s been years since I snuck out at night, but it’s all coming back to me. I pinch the fasteners on the screen and pull it in, setting it carefully against the wall. There used to be a bench here, but this time I’ll have to hoist myself up.

I sling my shoes over my shoulder. Bracing my hands against the windowsill, I jump up. The window’s just big enough that I can sit and swing my feet around. It’s two stories down, but the bushes will break my fall like they did in high school. I hope.

I hear voices, and then the creak of stairs.

“Now,” I whisper, and push myself through.

The fall is long enough that I feel my hair fly above my head before I land. I thud to the ground in a mass of prickly wet branches. The breath jolts out of my lungs. My face and arms sting with scratches.

I don’t feel my ankle until I start to run.

I can’t afford to slow down. Limping through the garden, I slip through the back gate and into the neighbor’s yard. Her security light jumps on as I run past her garbage cans. A distant voice bellows, “Grace!”

It’s my father. I hear the front door slam. Male voices. Shouts. I run faster.

When I get to the street, I stop. I turn around just long enough to look back at the house where I grew up and wonder if I’ll ever see it again.